


Lies Shatter Worlds

by Shadow_Dogma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Not Ward friendly, Philinda as Parents
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 12:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15170813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Dogma/pseuds/Shadow_Dogma
Summary: Phil and Melinda had a baby once upon a time. In a single night she is stolen. Years later, they've lost hope in ever finding her but they've never stopped looking anyway.Skye never had parents. Left at an orphanage, she struggles to find not only the truth of her past but her place in the world.





	Lies Shatter Worlds

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything Marvel, and am not making any money off of this fanfiction. Please don't sue me, cue puppy dog eyes.
> 
> Hello :)  
> This is something that I've thought about writing since the first season aired, but just never did. I don't know if it's any good but I'm posting it anyway. I don't have a beta, and I'm not exactly looking for one, but wouldn't be opposed to having one either. IDK. Its a lot of commitment and I tend to suck at that. All mistakes are mine, and there are probably alot considering I wrote this on my phone. Anyway...please enjoy the first chapter.

Melinda glares at her phone, silently demanding the screen to light up with Phil's number. It’d been five hours since Stark had redirected the nuke effectively ending the alien invasion. Five hours and there was still no word from him.  
In the grand scheme of things, five hours is a relatively short period of time. Cleaning up the war zone that had once been Manhattan would take months if not years, so Melinda has no doubt that Fury will have Phil bogged down with enough assignments to keep him busy for the next decade. Likely leaving him with little to no time to call.  
Except… Melinda knows Phil better than anyone. She knows that the first chance he got, Phil would have called her. Let her know that maybe he wasn’t unscathed but that he was still alive. Still coming home.  
After everything they had lost, he’d made her a promise to always let her know he was safe. Certain missions made it difficult to make contact, but Phil rarely broke promises. He’d never broken this one. He always finds a way to call. Only this time…he hadn’t. She prays desperately that her instinct is wrong.  
Phil is one of the most competent agents she’s ever worked with. If there was anyone, excluding Barton and Romanoff, that she’d ever be willing to put her money on to survive an actual alien invasion, it’s him.  
Surviving an alien invasion would probably be a pretty traumatic experience as well. Traumatic and shocking enough that it would be far within the realm of possibilities that someone could forget to reassure their loved ones of their safety. Especially if they were busy helping with search and rescue efforts. Focusing on getting as many people back to their families as they physically could.  
But Melinda can only delude herself for so long. She knows the Helicarrier was attacked shortly before the battle began. The Helicarrier Phil was stationed on. The damage had been severe and a number of agents had lost their lives. Though she knows the count could have been much higher.  
The names of the fallen hadn’t been released yet, SHIELD waiting until all families had been informed before doing so. But she’d heard murmurings while in Admin of a high-level agent distracting Loki, so the Avengers could regroup. The agent had been killed, but his sacrifice had united the Avengers. When she first heard the account, she'd nearly thrown up, because even without the name as confirmation, she knew. What high level SHIELD agent would be so stupidly self-sacrificing enough to stand up against a god? Philip J. Coulson.  
With a level 7 security clearance she could have easily accessed the list of fallen as soon as it’d been made. Searched his name. Discovered the truth. Breathed a sigh of relief or a sob of grief. She hadn't been able to bring herself to open it, though. Instead deciding to head home to stare at the wall and await a call that may never come. The thought of being confronted with undeniable proof that her greatest fear had come true, was one she could hardly bare.  
Melinda shutters out a breath verging on a sob, before placing her phone on the coffee table and scrubbing at the silent tears that trail down her cheeks.  
A knock sounds on her front door and she struggles not to vomit. In the aftermath of the invasion, no one would be coming to visit her. All her friends, members of SHIELD, would be far too busy with cleanup and containment. Only Phil would make time to see her before attending to his duties. But Phil had a key. There was no reason for him to knock. The only reason for anyone to be knocking at her door right now would be…  
A second knock drags Melinda to her feet. Staggering toward the door, she hardly breaths.  
Once she reaches the door her hand hesitates over the knob. She knows what’s on the other side. A lesser woman would ignore the messenger. Hide in her room. Pretend everything was fine. That her husband was out at the store getting milk or eggs, not laying lifeless in a body bag. Melinda May is not weak. She is also rarely one for beating around the bush. So, she steels her shoulders and yanks the door open.  
Sixteen years ago, her world was broken. When she sees Victoria Hand's expression, it shatters.  
“I'm so sorry, Melinda.”  
Her mask slips at the words and she falls into her friend’s arms sobbing harder than she has in years.  
When she comes back to her senses, she doesn’t know how long she’s cried into Tory's shoulder or when exactly they had moved from the foyer to her couch. She only knows one indisputable fact. Philip J. Coulson, her husband, the father of her child, and the love of her life was dead.  
It’s hours later, when Tory finally makes a move to leave, that Melinda opens her mouth to ask to see his body. Some part of her still needing that tangible proof. Still refusing to believe him gone.  
Still hoping.  
But then she thinks of his wide grin from a few days ago. How despite his worry for Barton, he was ecstatic over getting the chance to meet his idol. She’d rolled her eyes and walked out of the room when he’d asked her what collectible he should bring for Captain America to sign. Once he'd become distracted cooking dinner, she’d slipped back into his office and placed his trading cards in his brief case. A small note on top. Only thing small enough for Fury not to complain about. Though she had doubted that size would truly stop the man.  
Upon finding the cards, he’d given her a soft, tender smile. No words had been necessary to convey his gratitude. After such a long marriage and an even longer partnership, words rarely were.  
Their marriage was strong, but not without struggles. The loss of their daughter nearly breaking their union before it’d truly begun. She'd tried pushing him away in the months following the tragedy, but Phil had been stubborn. Refusing to abandon her when she needed him most. In the end, they’d clung to each other in grief, looking for comfort in the arms of the only person that could understand their pain.  
Years later, Bahrain had threatened to tear them apart. Again, Phil never gave up on her. He'd provided her the space she'd needed to come to terms with what she'd done, but he’d never left her alone.  
Their past was fraught with horror and anguish. There were many a fight and long silence. They held on though, because they were partners. And partners always had each other's back. No matter what.  
Though much of their marriage had been filled with pain, she’d learned to live for the small moments.  
She thinks of the quiet calm on Sunday mornings, when she'd practice Tai Chi while Phil read the paper. His expression focused through the glasses perched precariously on his nose. She thinks of the warm contented smile he’d wear when they cuddled in bed or on the couch. She thinks of all the small moments; the soft smiles and gentle touches. The moments when Phil would fanboy over his nerd collection, mouth stretched into a ridiculous grin.  
Her memories are all she has left of Phil, and so many are filled with pain. So, she chooses to close her mouth. To not ask for that proof. To instead keep the small moments, the happy ones, as her last memories of him.

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A sly smile flashes over Skye's lips as her fingers fly across her keyboard. This was only her second time successfully hacking into SHIELD and she must admit, she’s pretty proud of the fact she'd managed to do so solo.  
Her first time inside their system had been a team effort. Miles had led the hack with herself and three other Rising Tide members acting as interference. They were only able to uncover a few scattered communications, but even getting that far into SHIELD's servers was big.  
Out of all the alphabet soup agencies, they had by far one of the best cyber security teams. She could run laps around the idiots at the CIA and the Pentagon. But SHIELD? They were crafty.  
Since that successful group hack a few months back, she'd been working to develop programs to mimic the interference that she and the other members had played while Miles had fished around their servers. The extra interference will be helpful on their next group hack, but Skye's more interested in the use of the bot programs for solo hacking. Key word there being solo.  
She doesn’t mind teamwork. In many cases she actually prefers it, but Skye has an agenda. One that doesn’t include allowing a bunch of new age anarchists unfettered access to her past.  
She agrees with much of what the Rising Tide believes in. Freedom of information. Freedom of speech. Human rights. But despite her sympathies to their cause, her reason for being here is not to promote social changes.  
She needs answers. Answers only SHIELD has. Answers that she wants, needs to find alone.  
Hacking into SHIELD is not an easy task. Before connecting up with Miles and subsequently the Rising Tide, she'd tried going it alone and nearly ended up in prison for her efforts. Multiple times.  
Realizing that her knowledge of coding was insufficient enough to gain access, she’d reached out to her contacts on the dark web.  
Most weren’t that helpful, stating that they either didn’t have the skill or the stupidity (or as she likes to say guts) to try and hack SHIELD. Though one, a software developer from Seattle screen named F13ND or Fiend, had directed her toward someone they’d known at MIT. That friend was Miles.  
During their college years, the Fiend had been highly involved in various activism groups, but had since mellowed after landing a job at Microsoft. Probably that six-figure salary. Now they poked around the dark net when bored more often than for the sake of political movements. Miles on the other hand had taken a drastically different route than his friend from MIT. Dropping out of college just a few months before graduation and joining various hacktivist groups full time. If anyone could hack SHIELD, Fiend told her it would be him.  
In the months since meeting Miles, she’s learned much about security systems and how to hack them. She lives and breathes code. Spending all her time studying, observing, and training in a way that her new friends admire but don't understand.  
To them, hacking is a hobby. A tool to advance their political agendas. But Skye? Hacking isn’t merely a lifestyle, it is her life. It’s her purpose. It has become as much a part of her as her own hands.  
Miles had once told her that he’d never seen anyone with her raw talent and skill before. Her drive was unmatched. With the right foundation of knowledge, she could easily become the Rising Tide's best hacker.  
Though he may have been lying to her seeing as his next words were that she needed to relax a little, have some fun. Preferably with him.  
She didn’t fall for his line exactly, but Miles can be quite charming when he wants to be, if a bit self obsessed. After hours of staring at lines of code, she'd giving in to his flirting for a bit of stress relief.  
By now they had a routine, she'd hack until she was cross-eyed and then he'd pull her away for some fun, sometimes, usually, involving a bed.  
She likes Miles and their other friends, but she knows, that at some point she will be leaving them.  
Whether it’s because she finds what she's looking for or because they outlive their usefulness for her, she doesn’t know. Only that she will leave. That is after all what she’s always done.  
A tab popping up on her screen distracts her from her thoughts. Clicking on it she pulls open what appears to be a level one file.  
Skimming the pages, she starts downloading the file and any others she can get her virtual hands on. With her time in their systems limited, she focuses mostly on gathering as much information as she can rather than sifting through and choosing specific files.  
She'd yet to discover a way to shield, (ha-ha dad pun) her presence in their servers from SHIELD'S cybersecurity teams. Her bot programs are also still very primitive in design. It’s only a matter of time before they begin to narrow down her location, so time is of the essence.  
Waiting until she'd solved those problems would've been a good idea, but Skye just couldn’t throw away the opportunity of testing her skills while SHIELD is so distracted.  
You know, by that Literal Alien Invasion!  
Which. What. The. Actual. Hell??!!  
Skye was so coming back to that later.  
Right now though, she needs to concentrate on decrypting.  
Noticing the cyber team closing in on three of her bots, she backs out of the system and severs the connection. She leaves behind a small virus to keep them occupied while she reroutes her trail through about seven thousand different ISP addresses.  
Closing her laptop, she climbs into the driver's seat of her van. Shaking them off her sent is not a guarantee that they don’t have someone smart enough to find and follow her real trail, and Skye doesn’t really want to stick around to see who is more skilled.  
She decides that sifting through her stolen data after she’s skipped town, is probably a good plan.  
Pulling up maps on her phone she ponders the states around Arizona, her current location. Her eyes eventually land on Nevada.  
Vegas would be a couple of hours drive from Tucson, but she'd rather not stay in the same state and there is no way she's going back to New Mexico anytime soon.  
Mind made up, she turns over the engine and flicks on her headlights.  
Then promptly screams.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.  
> Please leave a kudo if you liked it. I really appreciate comments as well, so if you have the time, please do so. It really is encouraging as a writer to hear what you think.
> 
> I take constructive criticism but don't be mean or I'll start moderating the comments.


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